Spatial distribution and environmental preferences of the endemic South American palm Butia yatay.

SILVA, G.C.; KURTZ, D.B.; VIVIANA GRISELDA SOLIS NEFFA; BALSLEV, H.

virtual

Congreso; Palms; 2022

Butia yatay is an endemic South American palm that occur in areas with a warm-rainy climate and it is mostly restricted to sandy and rocky soils. B. yatay has a neotropical distribution and grows associated with flora from the Chaco domain. In the open grasslands and savannas of northeastern Argentina, western Uruguay and southern Brazil, B. yatay displays complex spatial patterns and generally grows in groups, conforming palm groves with different densities and ages. Furthemore, both paleobotanical information and historical records have shown a greater presence and distribution of B. yatay in the past. The continuous retraction of its range area has been linked to the extraction of adult palms for different human activities, and the allocation of land to agriculture and livestock production. Moreover, it has been suggested that, on a larger time scale, possible climatic changes may also have favored the retraction of B. yatay palm groves. Thus, in this study we present spatial distribution of B. yatay in different time scales based in 100 occurrence accessions of Argentina and Uruguay and we built species distribution models using Maxent software with two groups of predictor variables: climatic and non-climatic environmental. The results obtained allows us to understand the response of populations to historical and current processes landscape changes, as well as to assess the impact of climate change and future land use/cover.